


Project New Hope

by goingsparebutwithprecision



Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Everybody is a Giant Dork, F/M, Gen, Gratuitous Star Wars References, Pepper Potts is a badass, Pepper-centric, period pains
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-29
Updated: 2015-08-29
Packaged: 2018-04-17 20:35:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,665
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4680467
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goingsparebutwithprecision/pseuds/goingsparebutwithprecision
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Pepper Potts has the worst period pains known to humankind, and deals with them via movie marathons, superheroes, and unnecessary code-names. Only some of these things are Tony's fault.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Project New Hope

**Author's Note:**

> This fic began as a headcanon that went: what if Pepper Potts, in addition to being the world's most awesome personal-assistant-turned-CEO-turned-occasional-robotic-suit-wearing-badass, also has terrible period cramps, and snowballed from there.
> 
> Written pre-AoU, aka before AoU destroyed all my dreams of fluffy found-family Avengers goodness. Also, now I think about it, before CA:TWS and before I realised that Phil and the Avengers were probably never going to meet again because the universe is cruel and unfair like that.
> 
> Basically, this fic was written in an age of innocence and blissful optimism. You have been warned.

When Tony finds out, it’s because the Board are ringing him. And _talking_. Ugh. Variations on the theme of: _Goddammit Stark where’s your PA? You know, the only one who does any work round here?_

And you know it’s bad if the Board are ringing Tony, because the board hate Tony, they really do. Also, he’s terrible at anything that involves knowing anything vaguely related to time-management, like Pepper’s schedule. Or his schedule. And he is saying all this, this is all bubbling out of his mouth, as he waves his phone around with one hand and follows JARVIS’s directions with the other, until he finds Pepper with her head in the toilet, deathly pale and shaking, with an empty packet of pain-killers and a bottle of water on its side next to her. And the spill is soaking into Pepper’s expensive skirt, and that’s when Tony knows it’s serious.

“Good God Potts, are you dead?”

Then he calls the Board back, and tells them that Ms Potts is urgently engaged on a matter of the highest importance. She had to fly to Taiwan without warning, back when she can make it back, don’t ask questions, Fitzrothers, you look stupid when you open your mouth, laterz!

And then he finds a bucket, and some ludicrously fluffy blanket of Happy’s, and more painkillers, better painkillers, the kind he keeps in the workshop to take out the migraine that follows a sleepless week-long engineering binge. Then he puts these on and around the biggest, comfiest sofa in the workshop. And then he goes and he puts Pepper on there too.

“JARVIS? Diagnosis?”

Pepper groans at him, presumably to tell him to butt out of her business. Tony’s so used to it that he both instantly recognises it and instantly ignores it, and JARVIS says “My scans would indicate that Ms Potts is experiencing severe cramps.”

“Cramps?”

“The sort occasioned by menstruation, I believe, sir.”

Pepper half-heartedly flips JARVIS (or rather, the ceiling, but Tony’s used to it. So’s JARVIS) the bird, and Tony just stares, aghast.

“And this happens every _month_?”

“Indeed, sir.”

“Jesus, Potts. How are you still alive?”

…

“You are still alive, aren’t you, Potts?”

Silence, until JARVIS pipes up. “Ms Potts lives on, sir.”

“Gimme solutions, JARVIS, this needs to get gone, and get gone now. No biological imperative takes out Pepper Potts and gets away with it.”

Tony and JARVIS (or rather, JARVIS’s voice. Pepper’s used to it) move away, discussing god knows what crazy machines to fix her, and Pepper twitches. She’s thrown up everything in her stomach, at this point, including the painkillers, but she doesn’t think she can open her mouth and- and, what? What’s she going to say? It won’t affect my work? Bullshit. That’s exactly what it’s doing. I’m fine? That is quite manifestly not the case. Leave me alone to die? Tempting, but likely to provoke the complete opposite reaction from Tony.

Pepper hates everything. She particularly hates her internal organs, but mostly, she just hates everything.

She’s done pretty well, she thinks. She’s toughed it out for approaching six years now, Tony’s CEO in all but name, and never once has she taken a sick-day for this. Never once. She’s taken board-meetings feeling like her uterus is eating its way out of her abdomen. She’s done press-conferences fighting down nausea, fixed budgets and soothed ruffled R&D feathers when black spots have been eating away at her vision, with the pain that won’t let her sleep and won’t let her stand. She’s switched pills three times in three years. Nothing helps. She’s done her research, learned words like endometriosis and dysmenorrhoea, and her (nevertheless very discreet) doctors have flinched when she’s said them, asked her if she’s sure she’s not pregnant, and changed her pill prescription. Eventually, she just gave up.

Tony’s back. She should…she should leave, or something. Go home. She makes to get up, or rather, twitches and then dry-retches as the pain, against all reason, worsens.

“Easy there, Potts. You’re not leaving.”

He lands gently beside her on the couch, helping her into a sitting position and handing her first his super-strong post-engineering-black-out painkillers, the ones she’s not supposed to know about that Happy picks up from an easily bribe-able and apparently trustworthy (Pepper checked. It’s her job to have Tony’s back, even when he doesn’t know he needs it guarded) pharmacist in the Valley, and then a plastic cup of water. She takes both, downs two pills without looking, and collapses slowly back into foetal position on the engine-oil stained couch.

Tony shifts to accommodate her, bending down and grabbing something from the floor. She has a split second to wonder what in the hell he’s up to now, and then he’s back, arranging two hot-water bottles around her, one at the small of her back and one over her lower abdomen. They’re exactly the right temperature, just short of uncomfortable, and Pepper relaxes, as much as she’s able, into them.

“Now,” says Tony, quietly, “I’m given to understand, by JARVIS, the internet, and some terrible combination of both that somehow swept up a boxset of Grey’s Anatomy along with it, that there’s pretty much nothing else period-specific that we can do to fix this, but it’s pain, right, pain I’m good at, I have ridiculous amounts of experience in this topic, and I know that sometimes it’s distraction you need, and sometimes it’s company, and sometimes loud noises make you want to barf-“

Pepper lets out a groan that might, conceivably, have been meant as a laugh. She remembers peeling Tony off the floor after several such incidents, which had nothing to do with shredding reproductive organs and everything to do with the empty bottles of scotch scattered around him.

“-and you just want to be left alone to die. Since you’re non-verbal at the moment, we’ll do yes/no questions. Groan for no, two for yes. Or, you know, twitch. Throw up emphatically. Whatever you gotta do.” He takes her hand, and squeezes it, gently. She can feel callouses and traces of engine grease. He’s washed up, she realises, with a flood of affection, and squeezes back, just a little, as much as she can. Out of the corner of her eye she sees the corner of his mouth quirk up, and knows that he knows what she means.

“So. First question. Do you want to be alone?”

Pepper whimpers once. If she had enough control over her body or her brain, she’d be cringing inside at that. But working for Tony means you have to be prepared to give up on dignity at a moment’s notice, and she thinks that, after all the things she’s seen, all the distinctly undignified positions she’s caught him in, that perhaps it doesn’t matter so much, this time.

“OK, good. I mean, I would have left you alone, obviously, but I’d probably be back in under a minute, and every five minutes after that, because I know JARVIS would tell me if you died, but with the state you’re in I wouldn’t trust him to know alive from dead from a womb-eating zombie, so y’know. Constant badgering and check-ups in your future, Potts, I mean, constant.”

Pepper squeezes his hand again. _Get to the point_ , she thinks at him, and he seems to get it.

“Right, right, get on with it, don’t think I don’t know when you’re badgering me, Potts, I’d know your “get on with it, Tony” face anywhere. I think I could probably feel the waves of impatience through a lead-lined vault-wall, sheesh.” Pepper thinks about kicking him. Thinks about the throwing up of her latest batch of pain-killers on her billionaire boss (even if he is a billionaire currently wearing an AC/DC t-shirt with a hole in the armpit and decade-old jeans that have been burnt through at the knees. With actual fire) which would certainly follow any such attempt at violence, and subsides.

“Second question: Do you want to be distracted?”

Pepper thinks about it, then manages a nod. Tony catches it, nods back, rubbing his beard thoughtfully with one hand.

“That’s good, Potts, I’m excellent at distraction. I am the most distracting individual alive, ask anyone. Ask JARVIS.”

“You draw all eyes wherever you go, sir,” the AI says, in an overly patient voice. Inside her head, Pepper laughs. Her stomach rebels at the thought of moving that much.

“Type of distraction. Well, I could talk at you. JARVIS could sing you a soothing song. I’m sure I programmed you with soothing songs, didn’t I, dear?”

“Only you, sir, could describe near-infinite Black Sabbath as ‘soothing.’”

“We could watch a movie, and I could bitch about how inaccurate all the robots are, because, let’s face it, it’s me, in the workshop, full of robots, what else are we gonna watch down here? Reality TV? Say Yes to the Dress? I can express eloquent shock and awe at the institution of marriage, and you can lie there and silently judge every single one of their hideous fashion choices. You know you love it, Pep, don’t deny it.”

Pepper waits for him to get it.

“Wow, that wasn’t exactly a yes/no question, was it? Huh. OK, we’ll go through a list. Music.” Pepper doesn’t respond. “Bad tv.” Nothing. “JARVIS can read you the Shipping Forecast.” Pepper shoots him a look that tells him she’s laughing on the inside, and he goes on. “Erm, AC/DC’s greatest hits. Mario Kart. Movie.” She squeezes his hand again, and he grins. “OK, movies. Something new? Something sci-fi, with all the flashy distractory special-effect gizmos that I could do better in half the time and a quarter of the budget. Rom-Com.” He can sense, rather than see, her judging him, she can tell by the way he flinches. “Explosions. Aliens. Robots. Classic.” She squeezes. “Sophisticated. Dorky.” She squeezes again. “Huh. How about Star Wars?” Pepper manages to summon a grin, and Tony grins back. A proper grin. Not his press laugh, not his “smarter-than-you” smirk. Just…happy.

“Awesome. JARVIS, block all calls, give ‘em a cover story, something simple this time, don’t think I didn’t notice you slipping some mutated sewer-alligators into the last one, Everhart still hasn’t forgiven me, dim lights and cue up ‘A New Hope’”.

This is before Washington, before Natalie, before Monaco, before Pepper had even heard of palladium-poisoning, and this is Tony before so many things, so many good things, and he still doesn’t like to be touched, and Pepper still likes to pretend that their relationship is completely professional, never mind that they’re best friends and practically-roommates and sometimes they read each other’s minds without even looking, and so Tony stays at his end of the sofa. Pepper couldn’t change that if she tried, although Tony’s painkillers are starting to kick in, and her world’s going slightly soft around the edges, in the comfiest possible way. But by the time the cantina band starts playing, she’s uncurled enough to put her feet in Tony’s lap, and Tony is resting his barely-engine-greased hands on the arch of her left foot, and rubbing slightly, absent-mindedly, like this is just part of his inability to keep still without keeping something moving, some part of him busy. Pepper relaxes, and drifts off as the pain drifts away.

***

After that, they have a routine. It’s very complex. Too complex, in fact, to be called a routine. They have gone out of their way, Pepper and Tony and JARVIS, to make sure that nothing that could be called a routine can be construed from their actions every twenty-eight days. In fact, they go to great lengths to obscure that time-frame completely. It is not a routine. It’s a system.

It’s also a conspiracy. To begin with, the most secure, top-secret, eyes-only, need-to-know conspiracy includes Pepper, Tony, and JARVIS. Happy and Rhodey are eventually read in, in a general sense – they know that every now and again JARVIS will summon them to cover for Tony, or Pepper, or both, and Pepper thanks them profusely enough that they resolve to just go with it. They’re both used to Tony’s shenanigans at this point, and complaining about Pepper’s (they eventually figure out that this is for Pepper’s benefit, and not anything to do with Vegas, for which they are slightly disappointed), especially when they’re so minor, seems churlish in the extreme. They’re happy to help, and Project New Hope, as they call it, runs smoothly for years.

It consists of the careful scheduling of real appointments and precisely-faked emergencies, of Tony-vanishings (which necessitate the vanishing of Pepper) and of Tony doing ridiculous and improbable things in front of the press, timed exactly to distract until Pepper can emerge and do damage control. Tony takes to referring to JARVIS as “The Cover-Up King” after an incident involving ten gallons of icecream, a plushy unicorn, and a rogue Iron Man suit that definitely did not panic about reporters taking pictures of him in the freezer aisle and initiate a black-out that took down half of LA. Pepper stops her half-hearted protests about the fifth time round; not even by wild horses could the idea that she should just be able to deal with this, and that all this elaborate scheming to avoid the agony of working during one of nature’s inevitable annoyances was in some way letting down the sisterhood be dragged free, but she could tell that Tony was going to give it a damn good try, and tell her not to act dumb, Potts, it doesn’t suit you, when he eventually succeeded. By the seventh, she’d given in completely, resulting in her actually referring to the conspiracy by its ridiculous code-name and not shouting even a little bit when Tony got whatever speakers were nearest to play the Imperial March whenever she walked by. By chance, good karma or divine providence, there is never a super-villain emergency during Project New Hope, and Pepper remains deeply, profoundly thankful. Her idea of the deepest circle of hell is having to wear the suit (and fly in the suit, and fight in the suit, and blow bad guys up in the suit) at a time when she’s considering carving out her uterus with a spoon. It’s gotta hurt less, right?

There was a moment, Tony tells Pepper later, during one of Project New Hope’s endless movie marathons, when he was dying, when Pepper was first CEO, that he thought: maybe this will never happen again, and not in a good, pain-free Pepper way. But then, it was that time again, and JARVIS set the wheels in motion, set off all the right alarms, and Tony was just about to yell at him to turn all the damn things off, can’t he see he’s dying here, because what was the point – and there was Pepper on the couch.

****

Pepper thinks maybe things will change after New York. The world has changed, Tony has changed, everything they thought they knew is over and it’s a brave new age. Maybe she won’t have time, maybe Tony won’t have time. Maybe in the fallout the secret will fall out too, and her female-CEO-hood will be questioned in every paper and newsfeed. Again. And then the Avengers move in, and, for a moment, bitterly, she wonders whether Tony will be too busy with his new toys to worry about old projects.

Her doubt is brief, her fear unfounded, and the premonition of change, it turns out, was correct, but in the best of ways.

Pepper is on her way through the communal floor, having grabbed a takeaway cup of coffee from the spot Steve leaves it every morning after his run (and isn’t that bizarre, calling Captain America Steve, and finding him to be just as good as advertised, although far more broken, perhaps, than anyone but he can fathom), when the first wave hits. The coffee falls to the floor, her hand goes to her abdomen, and she almost whimpers with the effort it takes to not double over. Dammit, she was supposed to have at least a day, and this the first Board meeting of the new financial year, and the timing was always going to be tight, but this? Now?

“JARVIS,” she croaks, vaguely aware that people are making worried noises in the background, and milling there too, unsure how to approach her. “New Hope. Call Tony, if he’s-“

“Sir is always available for Project New Hope, Miss Potts. I will initiate the emergency procedures.”

Warm hands guide her to the couch, and she wrestles down nausea to thank their owners without knowing who they are. Who was in the kitchen when she passed through? Who was near enough to Tony to hear the alarm? Who-

And then Tony is there, and there are painkillers in her mouth and a glass of water at her lips, and Steve – Steve?- is being sent to the cupboard containing the microwaveable warming bag (much, much better than a hot water bottle, they’ve discovered, over the years, through what Tony resolutely claims is Science and Pepper just plain old fashioned trial and error) and Phil is calling the Board and telling them that Ms Potts has been detained on Avengers business, matters of National Security, I am not at liberty to discuss, I understand that Mr Winstanleigh, your concerns have been noted, thank you for your cooperation.

When Pepper is capable of coherent thought again, it’s just her and Tony. The credits for Big Hero Six are playing in the background, and Tony seems half asleep, though he’s rubbing lazy half-circles into her lower back with his drooping eyelids pointed vaguely in the direction of the screen.

“Where-?” Pepper manages, and Tony stirs.

“Hmm?”

“The others-“

“The others?” Tony rubs his eyes and wakes up fully. “Oh, not to worry, Potts. Cap left after you got settled and I let him know you were going to be ok. Agent dealt with the Board and then did that little half-smile of his and said “Six sisters, Mr Stark. My regards to Ms Potts”. Do you find it terrifying how he knows things, Potts, because it worries me, it worries me deeply.”

This is an old complaint of Tony’s, and she ignores it.

“Did they-“

“I mean, the idea of Agent having siblings is frankly terrifying, but six? No wonder he’s so good at wrangling baby agents, he’s had so much practice, and Aunt Peg was pretty adamant that Steve was a good egg, even if clueless about how to relationship, and how’s that for a coincidence, Pep, the Iceman and I have something in common, whaddaya know? And you know that JARVIS will get them for you if necessary, he’ll do that thing where he cuts you dead with an icy word, right, J?”

“My tone will be positively glacial, sir.”

“I think Cap kinda wanted to stay for Big Hero Six, mind, that man? King of dorkdom. Seriously. But he had a thing at SHIELD and he was muttering about tea when he left, so it’s possible that we won’t see him for a month while he goes a-questing around Brooklyn for that particular flavour of tea ground from sidewalk-moss that he remembers from the good old days, you know how he gets-“

The familiar babble soothes her, and from the jumble she picks out enough to know that Tony thinks Steve and Phil won’t change, and that if they do, he and JARVIS will have her back. That last, if nothing else, was never in doubt.

They end up watching the Sword in the Stone next, since the subject of questing has come up, and Tony keeps up a murmur of commentary into her hair (“- dreamt I got stuck in Arthuriana once, y’know, had to rescue good old Once-and-Future from Dr Doom. Remind me not to store engine oil in empty coffee mugs again, Potts-“) until she drifts back off to sleep.

***

The project subsides in the usual way, and Pepper doesn’t think much on it. Tony is right, Steve and Phil don’t treat her any differently, and the most important thing is that the system, and the secret, remain intact. In fact, the most important thing, though Pepper would refuse to cop to it in a court of law, is that Tony is still there. She’s getting used to it, Tony committed, Tony steady, Tony as there for her as she is for him, or near enough, but sometimes, (especially these times) Pepper falls back on old insecurities. It’s good to know that they can keep this, through everything that’s happened, everything else that’s changed, and she holds onto that.

****

It’s day three of New Hope, just over a month since Steve and Phil caught a clue, and Pepper is feeling well enough to sit in the kitchen with her tablet, get caught up on paperwork while Tony makes nice with the shareholders for her. She smiles at Steve when he enters, and they pick up their discussion of the new exhibition at the MoMA from last week easily.

He notices, she knows, her wince when she shifts, thoughtless, in her seat. His eyes flick to the heating bag resting on her lap, where it’s slipped slightly as she worked. And he gets up, and Pepper knows a split-second of unreasoning panic, thinking he’s panicked or that he’s freaked out or disgusted or however else men reacted to women having wombs in the Forties – pull it together Potts, you know better, a voice in her head that sounds disconcertingly like Tony says, and isn’t that rich, coming from Tony, or at least a Tony-like subconscious muttering. But he’s just going for the kettle, and Pepper relaxes.

“Tea?” He asks, and Pepper nods, hoping her relief isn’t too clear in her smile.

They’re silent as the water boils and the tea brews, and then –

“Peggy used to swear by this,” Steve says, and Pepper’s head shoots up. He so rarely talks about Agent Carter, Tony’s Cool Aunt Peg, and something warm uncurls, purring, in her chest.

He’s smiling into the mug, dwarfed by his cupped hands, barely a hint of the ever present misery, the yawning chasm beneath the surface of so many of the things he says and does, in this, the future, and Pepper is glad.

“It got harder to get hold of, later in the war. I honestly don’t know how she managed it. I used to joke that she has a top secret contact in the cut-throat world of rare tea-blends, but knowing her it was probably true. And she could go without it, but woe betide the enemy if she had to fight on those days. Barely enough of them left to fill a matchbox. She gave me some when I got gutshot one time. Said the pain was about equivalent, so if it worked for her, it ought to work for me.”

Pepper hugs him, impulsively, from her chair. It’s an awkward angle, but she doesn’t care, and it seems neither does Steve.

He shows her where he’s been keeping the packet, and JARVIS adds it to the regular grocery list, and, just like that, Steve’s in on Project New Hope.

***

Things snowball after that. Natasha’s been living in the Tower less than a week before she works it out, and she always knows where to get the very best icecream, and better yet, where to keep it so that Clint can’t find it. Then Clint breaks his hip jumping off of a building without telling anyone, as he is wont to do, and he’s made a fort of sulky muttering, pizza boxes and Tolkien (Pepper tries not to be surprised, and Clint smiles, surprisingly fragile, and says “you could get these everywhere, y’know. Every library I’ve ever been in, even little vans in the middle of Bumfuck, Nowhere, you got these. Ultimate comfort read”) on the new couch. Pepper and Tony have settled on the other one, the deep, squishy one that you can sink into for a thousand years, and JARVIS is just queuing up Empire Strikes Back (they’re feeling nostalgic today), and the Avengers alarm goes off. Tony dithers for a moment, but the team’s already a man down and Pepper, philosophically, accepts that it is nothing short of a miracle that this is the first time this has happened, and waves shooing hands at Tony until he leaves, calling to JARVIS to suit him up as he goes. The film is distracting right until it’s not, too familiar to hold her attention against the worry, ever-present when Tony is off fighting battles that can’t be won by wrangling share-holders or manipulating reporters (she doesn’t even think about suiting up right now, the very idea makes her want to die). Worry means tension means her uterus is putting up an even more spirited attempt to destroy her than usual, and Clint must notice her pallor, the winces and sweating and various other unattractive symptoms, because he turns the TV down and...tells stories. Classified SHIELD stories, improbable mercenary stories (“swear to God, Pepper, the biggest fucking robot dinosaur-“), and, eventually, in a quieter voice, carney stories.

Bruce meditates with her. Phil brings her Supernanny boxsets. Hill lends her worn paperbacks and takes her and Natasha out for celebratory cocktails once the worst has passed. On one memorable occasion, Fury gets stuck in the Tower during lockdown, with everyone else stuck outside, and proceeds to do an impression of Senator Stern that has her in (excruciatingly painful) stitches. If they had been any other people, at this point Pepper would have thrown up her hands and begun drafting a press release (contain the story if you can, control it if you can’t) but they’re spies. They’re the spies’ spies, the ones that the very toughest and the darkest and dirtiest of the regular spies have nightmares about. Her secret is safe with them.

***

It’s three years since the Avengers was founded. It’s dark outside the Tower, blustery, spitting rain and threatening thunder, but the communal floor is glowing in the light of the firepit Hogun and Volstagg have magicked up in the centre. Pepper lies back on her nest of blankets, pillows and what she’s fairly sure is Thor’s ceremonial cloak, a mug of warm mead in her hand and a coronet of “peaceful rest and pain’s ease” slipping sideways on her tangled hair. Lady Sif sits on the floor at her feet, having her nails painted a vivid scarlet by Jane Foster, who is murmuring about colour coordination as applied to quantum physics with regards to Einstein-Rosen. Darcy perches on the arm of the nearest chair, flicking kernels of popcorn into Clint’s waiting mouth, while Natasha sits on the new couch (ordered that morning after Thor broke the old one by bounding up on it to announce the imminent arrival of Lady Sif and the Warriors Three), with her feet in Phil’s lap and her eyes on the fire. Steve is stealth-braiding Bucky’s hair while the former sergeant frowns in concentration at the back of Thor’s head, nimble fingers, both metal and flesh, recreating one of the hairstyles of Daenaerys Targaryen as she strides purposefully across the ceiling screen. Bruce is sitting by the tray of brownies graciously provided by Darcy, who swears up and down that they don’t contain pot, shut up Jane, that was one time, although pot brownies for Pepper Potts, would’ve been awesome, right? Sam is arguing with Volstagg about putting pineapple on pizza (Sam insists that it is vital, nay, crucial, whilst Volstagg insists that meat, meat and more meat is the only way to go), and Fandral and Hogun are having an exhibition fight on the coffee-table.

And Tony is right beside her, like he has been for the last ten years, dozing off against her shoulder, and pressing the occasional sleepy kiss into her hair.

 

**Author's Note:**

> So many thanks to everybody who read this and cheerleaded before I plucked up the courage to join AO3 already.


End file.
